Europe awoke this morning to find that the second largest economy in Europe no longer wants to be part of it. Yes, the UK people have spoken and have decided that they would like to exit the European Union.
The ramifications of this decision will be felt for many years, if not decades. The most immediate impact is that David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, has resigned. He was the one who decided to bring this up for a vote and he was the leading supporter for the “Remain” camp.
This change will be felt by everyone in the UK including the peer to peer lending industry. We reached out to Christine Farnish, Chair of the UK P2P Finance Association, for a comment this morning:
Inevitably the UK now faces a difficult period of economic and political uncertainty. But I would urge observers to remember that none of this short term turmoil changes the fundamentals of p2p lending. People will still need to borrow, save and invest. And p2p lending’s clear consumer and economic benefits are not going to go away.
Some of the major peer to peer lending platforms in the UK came out against Brexit. Funding Circle, who just last week announced a £100M+ investment from the European Investment Bank, said Brexit would “would affect its ability to strike similar funding agreements in the future”. Most people agreed that this will be a bad thing for not just this sector but for all of financial services.
LendIt Europe 2016, held in partnership with the UK P2PFA, on October 10 and 11 will be covering the implications of this historic move in detail. We will hear from the industry’s leaders about this topic and much more. Registration is open now.
